Improved design wrapped in promises

September 24, 2003|By Blair Kamin, Tribune architecture critic.

Donald Trump is, if nothing else, a very shrewd operator, so no one should have been surprised Tuesday when he went out of his way to promise that his planned 90-story Chicago tower would be "top, top quality."

This is Chicago, after all, where luxury high-rises are supposed to be architecturally distinguished, not just blessed with a prime location and a good doorman, as in Manhattan. If you want to charge Midwesterners a staggering $8.7 million for a full-floor penthouse or even an unbelievable $470,000 for a one-bedroom, as Trump does, then you'd better not put them in a high-rise barn.

Trump's press conference was more spectacle than real news, but there were encouraging signs that his still-evolving Trump Tower Chicago--to be built on the riverfront site occupied by the bargelike, seven-story Chicago Sun-Times building at 401 N. Wabash Ave.--has taken a few more steps toward becoming a quality addition to Chicago's vaunted skyline.

The developer's architect, Adrian Smith of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill of Chicago, has designed several new features that make the office-hotel-condominium tower less a behemoth and a more persuasive synthesis of the trim vertical look of the 1920s and today's dynamic, asymmetrical forms.

Though the height of the proposed skyscraper remains 1,125 feet, which would make it the city's fourth-tallest building, the number of condominium floors has grown, and the number of office floors has shrunk markedly, resulting in new setbacks and a more pleasing overall profile.

The setbacks create interlocking masses that make the tower more sculptural and less bulky, a refinement of the improved version of the design that Smith made public in July 2002. Just as important, the setbacks modulate the scale of Trump's giant, which has always threatened to dominate such distinguished neighbors as the frilly white Wrigley Building.

Additional positive changes include a richly articulated glass wall for the silvery skyscraper.

To be sure, there are weaknesses: The tower's top is more stumplike than before. But Smith and Trump have come a long way from the developer's terrible first proposal, unveiled in December 2001, which was a series of stacked boxes, with an occasional setback to relieve its overwhelming bulk. Amazingly, city officials praised it. Thankfully, it was junked.

So is there reason to relax and to expect that Trump won't defile the skyline if, as planned, he signs up tenants and starts tearing down the Sun-Times building next summer?

Hardly.

The ever-political Trump is saying all the right things, promising Tuesday, for example, that he will spend, spend, spend on the building's highly visible curtain wall. But that's just a promise.

Maybe "The Donald," like his tenants, should be required to sign on the dotted line.